I was Billy no mates on Sunday! With no cycling buddies to
hook up with I took the opportunity to leave the house bright and early. 3 hours later when I pulled up sweaty
and mud splattered outside my house, the Garmin read
exactly 50.00 miles! I had set out with a route in mind based around the classic South Downs climbs of Harting, Bexley & Duncton, but definitely hadn’t
planned it with a 2 decimal points attention to detail.
During the 45min ride north towards Harting I noticed my
average speed was approaching 17mph. This isn’t unusual or amazingly fast, but it became a target to try and maintain my pace to the base of the first
climb of Harting Hill. As the road rose up into the mist and low cloud, my speed dropped and I fully expected to say goodbye to a 17mph average for
the remainder of the ride. I had plunged down through the murk and raced through the sleeping village at the bottom of the hill before
I looked down at my Garmin again and was surprised to notice Aver: 16.9mph.
It was a challenge that came out of nowhere but I was now
hooked on the magic number of 17! I popped out of the saddle on every short incline
in the road, and tried to hold a steady power on the relatively flat run into
Midhurst. Despite the grotty mud strewn roads I reached Easebourne and the
bottom of Bexley Hill with the average now reading 17.6mph. Even with a large margin
in hand, as I approached 1 hour 30 min ride time I definitely didn’t expect to hold
the 17mph average over such a long drawn out climb.
Approaching from the south
the hill grinds upwards at a steady and relentless gradient. As I spun away at the
pedals I occasionally glanced down at the handlebars, 17.5…17.4….17.3 down to
17.2. As I approached the crest I was out of the saddle pushing a big
gear over the top. No time to stop (in the mist there was no view to admire
anyway) instead I headed straight down the wet and slippery 20% decent. The twists and turns mean there
isn’t any chance to release the brakes and let the bike go. I edged down cautiously my fingers griping the brakes. Adding to the perils water flowed down the tarmac,
washing stones and grit out of the verge and making the corners more hazardous.
It wasn’t until I’d safely reached the bottom that I was able to take a breather
and pull an energy bar from my jersey pocket as I turned south and started heading homewards.
The undulating lanes around Selham and Graffham that lead through to Duncton
meant repeated short efforts were needed to maintain momentum and I could feel it was beginning to take a toll on my legs. Duncton, the final big climb of the
day, is a steep diagonal slope up the north side of the Downs. It’s made more
challenging because the half a mile leading into the hill is also a
subtle upward gradient. My legs were getting tired by now so I didn’t exactly
dance on the pedals and by the top I was down to a 16.6mph average.
There is only a brief drop before I turned along the valley
into a pronounced head wind. I kept my head down and the power on the pedals
tickling the average up to 16.7 by the base of the final recongnisable climb of
the day up to Benges. Out of the saddle I burnt the final matches I had
remaining with a big effort.
From there it was now an 8 mile blast home, with downward
glances at the Garmin to see how I was doing against my self created target. At
Tangmere I had to cross the pedestrian bridge over the A27. I whizzed up and
down the zig zags as fast as I could. 17mph for the entire ride was not a certainty yet. Once I
cleared the bridge I had the final 4 mile flat run home. I kept the pace above
20mph on familiar roads, dodging the pot holes and Sunday drivers. I slammed on
the brakes at my front gate having not stopped for the entire 50 mile ride. I'd averaged 17.2mph.
The totally unplanned 17mph challenge transformed my
training ride. I’ve averaged more than this before on rides even more challenging, but it provided the focus and motivation that kept me
pushing on when a Sunday ride on my own could have become a weekend cruise.
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